Coachella 2011

It's hard to tell if the capacity crowd at Cults' early-afternoon tent show was the inevitable product of their buzz-band status or simply a convenient way to beat the 104-degree heat. (The ratio of engaged listeners to bodies passed out on the grass was about 1:1.) But even if you were unfamiliar with the New York duo-cum-quintet, their set felt as soothing as a trip to the mist tent. Cults belong to an increasingly crowded field of indie-pop bands mining 60s girl-group gold sounds, but onstage they present an intriguing mix of contrasts: for a band that authentically evoke the innocence of the pre-hippie era, Cults look more like a bunch of long-hairs from a psych-folk band, while the period details-- omnipresent reverb vocals, glockenspiels, "Be My Baby" bass-drum kicks-- are undercut by more modernist intrusions like distorted guitars and triggered loops. But, naturally, the band's greatest asset is singer Madeline Follin, not just her pixie-perfect voice, but her face, too-- during the sweeping ballad "You Know What I Mean" you could see all the repressed desire conveyed in the song well up in her cheeks. --Stuart Berman

For reasons that become less clear as time marches on, these guys used to be called "math-rock." For one thing, nearly all of their songs are in 4/4 time. But more pointedly, their instrumental attack has the muscle and physicality of rigorously trained athletes. Guitars planted way-high on their chests, the band rips away at choppy, gnarled funk chords, and wiry, dexterous runs, and it's a thrill to see this stuff pulled off live.

It can be a real treat to see bands that might headline fests in their home country play relatively intimate tent sets at Coachella, and judging from how opener "Blue Blood" was a full-on singalong while "Miami" and "Total Life Forever" inspired impressively precise dance moves, this was a Brit-heavy crowd specifically here to see Foals. Furthermore, the slow burn of single "Spanish Sahara" was met with a rapturous response-- turns out it was NME's 2010 Track of the Year. --Ian Cohen

Bedroom-pop, dream-pop, Swedish indie, whatever: Radio Dept. records just flat-out sound lonely, both in creation in how they're liable to be consumed. Though I can't really blame him, lead singer Johan Duncanson probably never thought about how he might have to translate this stuff to an enormous outdoor festival crowd almost entirely unfamiliar with the vast amount of material he put out before his 2010 breakthrough, Clinging to a Scheme. So the unassuming and soft-spoken trio did their best to replicate their songs with the utmost fidelity to their studio versions. Which was a problem, because it was not unlike seeing a couple of normal-looking dudes putting some Radio Dept. records on shuffle while moving around as little as possible. It's not the worst thing to have a mid-day break, but this was uncomfortably inert and statuesque-- sometimes great songs require more than their creators can provide when they're out in the open. --Ian Cohen

Following Radio Dept. in the Gobi tent, Glasser offered a flipside to their predecessors. Their 2010 album Ring is also a very private and meticulous creation, but Glasser mastermind Cameron Mesirow went to great lengths to translate it to a big stage. Her band was decked out in half-jumpsuit, half-poncho uniforms reminiscent of the wardrobe in the Dirty Projectors' "Stillness Is The Move" video (didn't hurt that her left-handed, Strat-wielding guitarist bore a real resemblance to Dave Longstreth) while she rocked a full-body bridal veil that combined with her alternately airy and forceful vocals to achieve some sort of ultimate synaesthetic ethereality.

So, even by Coachella standards, it was unusual to see so many shirtless bros locked into the sinister lurch of "Apply". But, for all of Mesirow's bewitching movements and lovely vocals, it seems like there's one Coachella tent that's intent on making everyone who plays it sound like ass. On Saturday, that was the Gobi. The muddy live mix didn't hamper Glasser as much as some other acts, but as with Beach House and Grizzly Bear in years past, this group is more churchly than fit for a tent revival. --Ian Cohen

The sundown set is a special time at Coachella-- the point in the day where the heatstroke starts to subside and the second wind starts to build. And, with their deep arsenal of hazy-headed indie-rock anthems, Broken Social Scene are the ideal band to effect that transition. The Toronto ensemble's set was constructed on a gradual upward arc, beginning with the hazy, slow-motion rumble of "World Sick" and ending with the triumphant, brass-blasted blow-out of "Meet Me in the Basement". "Economy" is not a word you normally associate with the sprawl (sonic and personnel-wise) of Broken Social Scene-- even in this relatively stripped-down touring formation of the band, the bodies onstage still number in the double digits (and that's not counting the stage crasher who appeared to sing back-ups on "Texico Bitches"). But when faced with a truncated 40-minute limit (the byproduct of delays associated with the preceding Erykah Badu set), they're no less adept at making the most of their time. --Stuart Berman

After a SXSW performance that leaned heavily on his adventures in New Age ambience, our own Tom Breihan called Lil B an "energy vacuum." And his Okayplayer-courting mixtape Illusions of Grandeur had me worried that the Based God wasn't going to be fun anymore. Safe to say he learned his lesson: performing in some contraption called the Oasis Dome-- which ironically looked like a Rainforest Café-- this was total crowd-pleasing shit for a crowd dying to have their Based God worship acknowledged: "Wonton Soup", "Ellen DeGeneres", "I'm Jesus", teenagers wielding ladles, spatulas and tongs, cuddling couples doing their own cooking dances.

It was probably the closest thing I'll ever see to an Ol' Dirty Bastard solo performance-- id completely unleashed (likely at the cost of actual musical value). There was the extracurricular boasting: "Where's the napkins? I'm the best!" He announced his new album will be called I'm Gay and then went on a half-sensical monologue about how he's not gay and was actually looking to get laid that night. He advised that if anyone in the crowd was to have unprotected sex, "don't get tested." He rapped over Air France's "June Evening". And then a crowd-surfing Tyler, The Creator-- who got kicked out of Coachella earlier that day after spraying a security guard with a water gun-- was brought on stage with the rest of Odd Future to perform "I'm a Pretty Bitch". I won't pretend like Lil B changed anyone's mind about anything at Coachella, but you were not going to get that type of performance from anyone else this weekend. --Ian Cohen

Conor Oberst has been putting his skewed, highly personal take on the American songbook for so long that he's got something of his own now. If The People's Key is truly his last record as Bright Eyes, it's pretty stunning to see how much ground he's covered in the past decade and a half, evolving from the raw, poisonous caterwauler of his earliest recordings to political-minded populism to cryptic mystic. And, thankfully, Oberst isn't one to forget his roots: it was great to see his band still come off like a bunch of Omaha buddies jamming out together. As his set winded down, he unearthed oldies "Lover I Don't Have To Love" (his finest sing-along) and "The Calendar Hung Itself", and both found Oberst playing with his lyrics and vocal affectations, discovering new emotive power in songs written by a very different version of himself. It's a bummer that Bright Eyes records don't have the same fourth-wall busting jolt of the past, but when the highlights are placed side-wise like they were tonight, it definitely put me in a mood for rediscovery. --Ian Cohen

The Kills are a two piece band but their stage set-up features three vocal mics-- one on stage left for frontwoman Alison Mosshart, one on stage right for her guitarist foil Jamie Hince, and one in the middle for the two to fight over. For such a simple stage plot, it makes for some high drama; a Kills concert becomes an increasingly anxious waiting game of when the two are going to face off in the middle. They wasted no time with a terrifically tense "No Wow", and when the two finally meet up during a smouldering "Kissy Kissy", Hince raises his guitar neck to Mosshart's face like he wants to impale it through her skull. But as their new release Blood Pressures suggests, the Kills are also keen to experiment with new modes of presentation, with mixed results-- while the three hired-hand backing singers enhance the Congos-cribbed chorus hook of "Satellite", they also prove to be a too-smooth accoutrement to the simmering menace of "DNA." But piano ballad "The Last Goodbye" yields a surprisingly affecting moment; though its late-set appearance threatens to bring momentum to a halt, the mounting wave of applause that succeeds it produces a rare and visibly humbled smile from behind Mosshart's greasy black bangs. --Stuart Berman

This year's Coachella features two veterans of first-wave, class-of-77 punk: ex-Clash guitarist Mick Jones (here with Big Audio Dynamite) and Wire. They were scheduled to play at the same time, and this splitting of the geezer crowd may be part of reason the Gobi tent is barely half full by the time Wire take the stage. Then again, Wire are arguably the unlikeliest booking on the entire Coachella bill-- the band's caustic, intricate art-punk isn't exactly prime fodder for festival frivolity, and they staunchly refuse to indulge in the obvious, greatest-hits-stacked set lists that veteran acts often rely on to appease the masses. But for the die-hards on hand, Wire's set craftily harmonizes the band's new Red Barked Tree with strategically selected complementary tracks from 1979's 154 ("Map Ref. 41 N 93 W)", "Two People in a Room") and 1988's A Bell Is a Cup ("Kidney Bongos," "Boiling Boy"). Even if Red Barked Tree comedown track "Down to This" was an odd choice of closer, Wire are still the consummate model of aging gracefully-- and as bassist Graham Lewis illustrates, there's nothing more punk than wearing your reading glasses around your neck onstage, even if you never have to use them. --Stuart Berman

Yes, Merriweather Post Pavilion cracked the Billboard Top 20. But there's still something strange about Animal Collective playing a prime late-night, main stage set at one of America's biggest musical festivals, especially given the band's long-standing reputation for using their live shows to test out new material rather than lean on the back catalogue. But with their set preceded by a dramatic demonstration of Coachella's massive grid-cube stage-lighting display-- soundtracked by an AnCo-commissioned score/drone by Black Dice-- you could be forgiven for thinking that Animal Collective may have finally have warmed up to the idea of putting on a Daft Punk-sized, crowd-pleasing spectacle.

Yeah right-- once the lighting rig parted to reveal the band onstage, it was business as unusual. They heralded the reemergence of on-again/off-again member Deakin by letting him sing the opening song, which was the first of several new tracks unveiled, many of which were of a piece with the swampy dub sonics of Panda Bear's new Tomboy. (The womb-like insularity of the music was reflected in the big-screen visuals, which eschewed the festival-standard closed-circuit performance close-up shots in favor of obscuring, psychedelic splotch effects.)

"We came to bring the weird to this thing," Avey Tare announced a few songs in, fully aware that the band would soon be driving away large portions of the crowd back to the beer garden to wait for Arcade Fire. For Animal Collective purists, the set was a remarkable display of the band's uncompromising, adventurous spirit in the face of the conformist pressures endemic to a mega-festival setting; for others-- including Lord of the Rings hobbits Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, lying bored on the grass next to me-- Win Butler's arrival couldn't come fast enough. But, chances are, in two years time, they'll probably be wishing Animal Collective were playing these songs on their 2013 tour. --Stuart Berman

Coachella is where reunited acts go to confirm they're a real band again. And while the return of Britpop instigators Suede after eight years may not match the hype of previous alt-rock renaissances (Pavement, the Pixies), they're the only band here that matters for the fervent fans filling up half of the Mojave tent. Coming Up track "She" was a somewhat sluggish choice of opener, but with the following "Trash", frontman Brett Anderson was right back in his element, jumping up and down, standing Christ-like at the foot of the stage, and deferring vocal duties to the crowd for the chorus. The set pulled equally from the band's 90s albums-- from debut-album signatures "Animal Nitrate" and "The Drowners" to Head Music's "Can't Get Enough"-- and while one wonders if there's a purpose to this reunion beyond simple nostalgia, this much is certain: Anderson dearly misses being a pop star, and if the chiseled lines on his face mean he no longer resembles the fey androgyne that once graced covers of the weeklies, he undoubtedly still has the passion and presence the job requires. --Stuart Berman

"If you told me in 2002 we'd be headlining Coachella with Animal Collective playing before us, I would've said you were full of shit." Frankly, Win Butler-- I think you're full of shit. What I love about Arcade Fire is how every single thing they've done since the beginning has made it seem like headlining huge festivals was the only conceivable result. And their third Coachella performance (they used to be in smaller type on the poster than the Faint!) was a straight-up fulfillment of prophecy: a "Coming Soon: Arcade Fire" movie marquee hung over the stage, and it might as well have been there since 2002.

Photo by Natalie Kardos

They played with the confidence that can only come from spending your entire career imagining that every show is a Coachella-headlining gig. And there was a palpable sense of relief that Arcade Fire were strictly playing "the hits"-- I don't think I need to tell you that "Month of May", "Crown of Love", and "No Cars Go" were epic. Butler called a run of "Intervention" and "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)" the "peaceful" section.

But headliners usually maintain a sense of mystery about what will make their particular set an "event," which was strange from a band as forthright as Arcade Fire. A big black box was raised over them halfway through the two-hour set, and the buzz was already circulated about what the Creators Project (Vice and Intel) had in store. Well, it was balloons. OK, it was more than that-- the giant orbs all changed colors almost in sync during a monstrous "Wake Up", and it was pretty fucking awesome. Oh, and they did a four-song encore ending with "Sprawl II", quite possibly the only thing that could've proved even more uplifting to the thousands of people who were about to spend hours trying to get out of the parking lot. --Ian Cohen